BIRDS DO IT, BEES DO IT…

In fact, homosexuality probably exists among all animals, and scientists are just realising it may play an essential role in the continuation of species. Mike Hitch reports.

Scientists are realising homosexuality may play an essential role in evolution.

Late in 2020, a news story popped up that seemed all too familiar. Yet another gay penguin couple had adopted an egg and were happily nesting it. Gay penguins seem to appear in the news with surprising regularity. Is it because penguins are particularly gay, or because in captivity it’s easy to observe their behaviour?

The pair of Gentoo penguins, named Sphen and Magic at Sydney’s Sea Life Aquarium, had just fostered a second egg. Sphen and Magic met and became a couple in 2018 and that same year successfully hatched a first egg – their daughter Lara – who they raised in their home at Darling Harbour. The egg originally came from a couple of penguins who had produced two eggs but could only nest one.

To human gays, adopting a child with your significant other the same year you meet seems hasty but when you’re a Gentoo penguin with a lifespan of roughly 13 years, it’s smart to get started quickly.

“Penguins, including Gentoo penguins, are among the many species in which male-male or female-female pairing occur frequently and we are fortunate to have our own male-male pair,” announced Sea Life Aquarium. “Just like our other Gentoo parents, Sphen and Magic are attentive and incredibly caring and we feel privileged to have such an amazing duo in our colony,” they said.

As it turns out, same-sex couples and courtship in many species are a lot more common than most people think.

Back in 1999, Canadian biologist, linguist and author of the book Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality And Natural Diversity, Bruce Bagemihl, found that 450 species of animal, including insects, had been documented engaging in what can be described as homosexual behaviour.

Now, we know that over 1,500 species of animal across the world engage in homosexual behaviour – from co-parenting to sex – with bisexuality being even more prevalent across species.

Rams, for example, have an 8 to 10 percent rate of exclusive homosexuality, and are one of the few animals (other than humans) who exhibit exclusive homosexual behaviour. Roughly 18 to 22 percent of rams can also be considered bisexual.

However, chief executive of the UK’s National Sheep Association, Phil Stocker told The Independent, that the idea of gay rams is “nonsense”. “You don’t get rams that are gay. You find rams with high sex drive that will ride anything, but they won’t have full sex with other rams. It’s nonsense.”

There is truth to this. Crudely labelling the sexuality of animals, including humans, diminishes the complexity that underlies sexual orientation but the existence of homosexual behaviour in animals has resounding implications for those who label gayness as abnormal or unnatural.

For centuries, homosexuality in humans was deemed unnatural in many cultures and, until recently, homosexual behaviour in other animals was overlooked by scientists who believed it contradicted Darwin’s theory of evolution. It was regarded as a “Darwinian paradox” because it involved non-reproductive sexual behaviour.

It wasn’t just science that was confronted by the prevalence of homosexual activity across nearly all species. That homosexuality is a natural phenomenon is problematic for a broad swathe of cultural and religious beliefs.

Now, with open minds and new research, scientists are discovering that homosexual behaviour is not a paradox but may play an essential role in the continuation of species.

While we don’t quite understand the causes of homosexuality – physiological, genetic and neurobiological factors are still being debated – Bagemihl interprets the research as suggesting that there’s more to sex than just reproduction.

BONOBOS

As homosexuality in animals is multi-varied and includes same-sex courtship, pair-bonding, sex, co-parenting, and even lifelong homosexual bonding, Bagemihl argues that homosexuality also serves an essentially social purpose.

Bonobos seem to offer the best example of this. Frans de Waal, author of Bonobo: The Forgotten Ape, describes this species as the “make love, not war” primate. Their actual sex closely parallels that of humans (shrieks and grinding) and is used for stress relief, reconciliations and even just for random hook-ups.

Unlike another of our cousins, the more violent chimpanzee, bonobos resolve conflict through sex. As a result, they rarely kill each other – there’s never been an observed case. Instead, bonobos share food and cooperate harmoniously as a group. If tensions arise between two females over wrangling offspring, they’ll make-up by rubbing their clitorises together.

BOTTLENOSE DOLPHINS

But, like humans, can it sometimes just be a phase? Well, yes.

Bottlenose dolphins are one of the most enthusiastic same-sex-enjoying mammals. Researchers from the Mandurah Dolphin Research Project in Western Australia have observed males “getting it on” after their mating season. Once mating season has ended, male dolphins are known to form temporary samesex partnerships, which scientists believe helps them establish lifelong bonds.

Sex, it would seem, is good for social cohesion, however, homosexual behaviour may also be a necessary tool for reproduction in some species.

Found in New Mexico, whiptail lizards are all female. They reproduce asexually in a process called parthenogenesis in which a female’s DNA recombines with itself during the replication of sex cells, making each daughter slightly different from her mother.

While two female whiptail lizards don’t need to copulate to conceive, that doesn’t stop them. In fact, scientists have found that female lizards that perform the courtship ritual have greater fertility than those kept in isolation due to changes in hormones triggered by sexual behaviours. Simply put, one female lies on top of another in a gesture of sex pairing and the lizard that’s on the bottom has larger eggs as a result.

But what about male-male pairings and the reproductive process? Sex between them will never result in offspring.

BLACK SWANS

Back in Australia, it turns out that roughly a third of all black swan pairings are male homosexual couples. How is their instinct to raise a chick manifested? Sometimes the couple will steal another couple’s nest once the eggs are laid. They have also been observed mating with a female but chasing her away once the eggs are laid and hatching them as a male-male parent couple. Similar behaviour is observed among flamingos.

Scientists are beginning to forward theories on the evolutionary advantages of such behaviour. Among many species, there is a higher survival rate of offspring raised by gay male couples when compared to heterosexual pairs. Why? The physical strength of two male parents compared to a male-female couple gives the male couple an advantage when it comes to protecting the nest from aggressive neighbours and predators. Two male parents may have an advantage when it comes to catching more and larger prey with which to feed the offspring.

Some theories also include the suggestion that by choosing to become parents, samesex parents may be more caring and attentive parents than heterosexual pairs.

If same-sex parenting and coupling is so widespread across the animal kingdom, why has science only begun investigating this in the last couple of decades?

“There was a lot of hiding of what was going on,” de Waal told National Geographic in 2004. “I think, because people were maybe afraid that they would get into trouble by talking about it.”

The implications for humans have been profound. For example, Bagemihl’s book detailing animal homosexuality was cited by the American Psychiatric Association and other groups to the United States Supreme Court in 2003, to help strike down existing sodomy laws in the case of Lawrence v Texas.

The argument that homosexuality is an “unnatural condition” no longer carries the same weight it once did. Thank you, science!

So, what of homosexuality within our own species? Male homosexuality is partly hereditary and tends to cluster in families. Male identical twin brothers are more likely to both be gay than fraternal twin brothers as fraternal siblings do not share identical DNA. >>

Once mating season ends, some male dolphins form temporary same-sex partnerships.

>> Aside from the social cohesion of groups, sexual gratification, and perhaps the advantages of raising offspring with two devoted parents, there may be another specific reason why homosexuality occurs in humans.

Having a gay uncle may give offspring a better chance of surviving to adulthood and therefore an evolutionary advantage. The Kin Selection Hypothesis suggests that the homosexual sibling of a reproductive adult is biologically inclined to help support that sibling’s offspring. Basically, gay uncles and lesbian aunts are good at helping raise their nephews and nieces.

Evolutionary psychologist at the University Of Lethbridge in Canada, Paul Vasey notes that this is nature’s way of allowing gay men to pass on the genes they share with their siblings.

“Maybe what’s happening is they’re helping their kin reproduce more by just being altruistic towards kin,” he says. “Kin therefore pass on more of the genes which they would share with their homosexual relatives.”

There is still much to be understood about homosexuality within the animal kingdom but it’s clearly not abhorrent or unnatural, and its existence proves that sexuality has purposes other than procreation.

Could it even be that the altruism demonstrated in Kin Selection, enhancing the survival of our species, suggests that God deliberately created Adam and Steve? And where would Lara and her new sibling be without Sphen and Magic? •

Male-male black swan couples can steal another couple’s nest and eggs to raise as their own.